Offside protocol putting players in danger | OneFootball

I was very interested in the interaction between the Nottingham Forest owner, Evangelos Marinakis, and manager, Nuno Espirito Santo at the end of their 2-2 draw against Leicester City on Sunday.

The pundits’ immediate reaction was that the Greek owner was berating Nuno for the loss of points and Forest’s performance but I wasn’t convinced that that was the case.

I felt that it was more likely something to do with the awful injury sustained by one of the Forest players and how the officials and/or club had handled that.

An official statement from Nottingham Forest the following day, claiming this to be the case.

Nottingham Forest forward Taiwo Awoniyi was taken to hospital on Monday, having collided with a goalpost in the closing stages of the 2-2 draw. He was attempting to get on the end of a cross by winger Anthony Elanga when he suffered his injury. Replays showed Elanga was offside in the build-up – just inside the Leicester half – yet play had been allowed to continue, culminating in Awoniyi’s serious injury.

Although clearly in severe discomfort, the player was treated, left the pitch and was then allowed to rejoin play. Forest had used their full complement of subs by this stage so taking him off would have reduced them to 10 men.

With the benefit of hindsight (where’s Andy “Hindsight” Hinchcliffe when you need him?) he should have been subbed regardless of the consequences and taken straight to hospital because – when he did eventually go in for examination – it was discovered that he had ruptured an intestine and needed an operation urgently.

More correctly, he had suffered an Intestinal perforation which is defined as a “loss of continuity of the bowel wall” and is a potentially devastating complication that may result from a variety of reasons. Common causes of perforation include trauma (as in this case), instrumentation, inflammation, infection, malignancy, ischemia, and obstruction.

Consultant colorectal surgeon Prof Gillian Tierney, quoted on BBC Sport, explained :

“The injury is really serious. It is potentially life-threatening.

“It is very easy to miss at the point of contact and can take hours to diagnose.

“In a hospital setting we would send a patient for a CT scan which could take up to 10 hours.

“If it occurred to an athlete who was super fit, very muscular and was running on adrenaline then I think it would be extremely understandable to miss it. Fluid leaking from the intestine would not be easy to diagnose straight away.

“Surgery is usually required and the stomach would be opened up. The mortality stat is 9%. “

The fact is that no one was aware of how serious the injury was – not least Awoniyi himself who obviously agreed to “battle on” despite the pain.

In the event, Àwoniyi was operated upon and the damage repaired. He was taken into hospital and on Monday he had the first stage of surgery. He was then put into an induced coma to enable staff to monitor his progress while the “wound” was still open. He was then woken up on Wednesday and had the surgery completed, including closing of the wound.

Happily, it is reported that he is making good progress. The fact that he is a young, fit athlete and the issue was addressed quite quickly has obviously helped.

So why did this happen when a player was clearly offside?

I think most of us are aware that à new protocol on offsides was introduced by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) for the 2020-21 Premier League season following the introduction of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR).

Although the offside law itself did not change, assistant referees were told to keep their flag down if they felt there was an immediate scoring opportunity.

I have lost count of the number of times that players, managers, pundits and fans have complained about this and expressed their fears that “someone’s” going to get injured when play should have been stopped – although it has probably been most often the goalkeepers who were most at risk.

Surely, after this unusual but at the same time inevitable personal disaster, the authorities have to re-examine this protocol. Whilst I can see the positive reasoning behind it, players’ welfare must come first. During the close season the FA/PGMOL/UEFA etc need to look carefully at this and other aspects of the off side law and adjust it accordingly.

Best wishes to Taiwo Awoniyi and to Nottingham Forest in their push for Champions’ League football (providing they finish below Newcastle United, of course!).